The Girls in the Woods (9 page)
He might have won that fight but he lost the prize. Panicking, he’d sat with Heath until he’d regained consciousness and apologised profusely – he’d told Heath that he’d won. He could keep the girl. Paul wouldn’t bother either of them again as long as Heath didn’t report him to the police. Heath had agreed, although Paul had a feeling that he wasn’t the sort of man who would go running to the police anyway, but he had too much to lose. He couldn’t afford to be arrested for grievous bodily harm; it would have ended his career if he had. So Jo had gone off into the sunset with Heath – he’d told Jo the next time he saw her that he couldn’t really get involved with her; he had to think of his career. She’d always been gullible and she’d cried a few tears but then had gone running straight into Heath’s arms and, oh, how that had hurt. Watching them at the pub hurt so much that he’d stopped going down there for the quiz. In fact, he’d pretty much stopped going anywhere apart from fell walking. He liked that – being on his own, out in the open with just his thoughts. He wondered how Jo felt now. He wondered how long it had been before she’d realised what a huge mistake she’d made leaving him for Heath. He didn’t like the fact that he knew Heath hit her on a regular basis. But there was nothing he could do about it – because Heath knew Paul wouldn’t report him, as much as he wanted to. In fact, what he wanted to do was to make Jo see sense and leave Heath for good and come back to him, because he was so goddamn lonely. He was good looking and could have any woman he wanted if he tried but most of the women in the village and surrounding areas were his patients. This bloody code of ethics was a complete pain. If Jo did come back to him he would make her sign up to the doctor’s in Bowness and no longer be her GP. It was his turn to live happily ever after… well, it would be once they figured out how to get Heath out of the equation.
He had been very quiet since the police arrived and it made her wonder what he was trying to hide, because something was wrong. She knew he had nothing to do with the body outside – that was ridiculous. Yes, he was violent and a bully, but he’d never brought women home or done anything that had aroused her suspicion. He spent all his time cooped up in his studio or workshop, then seemed to do nothing but complain about the women he photographed, saying they all expected him to be a miracle worker. They didn’t just want a portrait – they wanted to look thinner, younger, prettier, sexier. Jo had sniggered the first time he’d started to really rant about his clients. She had never sniggered again after the beating she got for it. He was a good photographer, though, and she couldn’t take that away from him. She supposed it was his calling; where some people wrote books, danced or played the drums, he was very good at taking photographs. She wondered what she was good at and realised that at the moment her best virtue was making cups of tea and having great stamina for taking a beating. She giggled. Maybe she should join the secret service and go undercover somewhere exotic; anything would be better than this non-existent life. The door banged as he came in, looking as if he’d been caught with his hand in the biscuit jar.
‘Would you like anything to eat or drink?’
He shook his head.
‘No, I think I’m going to lie down. I don’t feel well.’
‘Okay, I hope you feel better soon. I’ll make sure I don’t make any noise and disturb you.’
He looked at her but didn’t really look at her. Something was bothering him and she did her best to look concerned, but inside she was gloating. It made a change for him to be ill; normally it was her having to go to bed because the punch he’d thrown at her had given her a migraine. He turned to go upstairs and she turned on the kettle – if he wasn’t going to talk to her she might as well take some drinks outside to those poor police support officers who had been standing there for hours. At least she could strike up a conversation with one of them for a little while and they might be able to tell her a little more about what was happening.
***
Will had spent all afternoon on the phone, trying to push what had happened earlier at the Tysons’ house to the back of his mind, but he was still annoyed with what Stu had said. As if he’d been coming on to that woman in the cottage. Why would he, when he had everything he ever wanted waiting for him back at his own house? It was careless remarks like that which started gossip, and the station was rife with rumours about affairs. Hell, he’d been the source of most of them for a few years, but not any more. He’d changed, and Stu should have realised that before he opened his mouth. He’d spoken to Matt, his friend who also happened to be the pathologist for the South Lakes, and requested his assistance. Then he’d spoken to the Detective Chief Inspector, who just happened to be at headquarters in a meeting – he’d told Will to do his thing until he could get there. Will had told him no problem, relieved because his boss was a pain in the backside anyway. He would flounce in and take control, giving out orders that had already been actioned, only to leave once the weather turned chilly or dark, whichever came first. He dialled another number and held the phone to his ear.
‘Hello, gorgeous. I’m just ringing to say I’m going to be late home.’
‘Oh, is everything okay?’
‘Not for whoever’s skeleton some kids stumbled across this afternoon it’s not.’
‘Oh no, that’s terrible. Really? Where at?’
‘Not far from our house, actually – a mile and a half in the other direction. It’s out the back of a cottage on the outskirts of the village. In a secluded wood, which is why it’s stayed so well hidden for such a long time.’
‘Aw, that’s so sad.’
‘I know, that’s why I want this doing right. We need to find out who it is and, more importantly, who buried them there.’
‘Well, you’re the right man for the job. If anyone can send them home, you can. I love you, Will.’
‘I love you more, Annie. I’ll probably be late so don’t wait up if you’re tired. I’ve got a key and don’t worry about food. I’ll grab something when I get home.’
He waited for Annie to end the call. It was tradition that she ended it first and she knew how much he hated cutting her off. It had turned out he was a lot soppier than she’d ever given him credit for.
She wandered into the kitchen and smiled at her pale pink Aga; it had the same effect on her each time she walked in and saw it sitting there. Jake had come through with his part of the bargain – when she’d confessed to him how much she wanted one, he’d told her Will would buy it for her and he’d been right. It was the only concession to pink in the house, which was mainly white, pale green and grey. Unless of course they had a baby girl, and then pink would be everywhere. She rubbed her hand across her swollen belly. Then she thought about the skeleton that had been found in the woods – for a small village, there sure were a lot of dead people hidden around it in gardens and woods. She shivered so violently her teeth clashed together. Something wasn’t right. She felt as if she was being watched and knew that someone was standing behind. Her heart began to race as thoughts of Betsy Baker, the woman whose name she would not speak out loud in her house, filled her mind.
Please God don’t let her have come back for round two. I’m not up to it and I don’t want to be scared out of the house I love.
Annie turned but there was no one behind her and she breathed out a sigh of relief – it wasn’t her because if it had been she would have let her presence be known. The woman had been hanged as a witch, but Annie knew she had been a cold, callous, calculating killer and nothing more. But something was wrong – there was a spirit around; she could tell by the sudden change in the atmosphere and the fact that her built-in psychic sensors had kick-started themselves. It was then that she saw the face of a young woman staring at her through the kitchen window. Annie squealed, jumping back, but the face didn’t move or smile. She was painfully white, with black smudges for eyes, straggly long blonde hair hung down in rat’s tails on her shoulders, and on the left-hand side of the girl’s face was a horrific head wound that looked as if it was alive with maggots and worms moving around inside of it. Annie scolded herself. No matter how many times she saw a ghost, for want of a better word, it nearly always had the same effect on her. Sophie and Alice were the exceptions, but even they could sometimes startle her. She forced herself to walk towards the window.
‘What do you want? Can I help you?’
Her voice wavered and the words felt heavy, as if they were floating in the air. It was so quiet the huge American-style fridge, which Will had insisted they had to have, had stopped its humming. There wasn’t a sound in the house except for her breathing, which seemed to be far too loud in her ears, and the pounding of her heart. The face never moved or changed its expression – it just stared at her. Annie walked up to the glass window and could feel the drop in temperature. The kitchen now felt like the inside of a fridge. The girl had something clasped in her hand and Annie recognised the curled-up white edges of an old Polaroid instant camera photograph. She lifted her hand, pressing the picture against the glass, but it was so old and faded all Annie could see was yellow and grey shapes where the images had once been. She shook her head at her.
‘I can’t see anything. What is it?’
But the girl’s image began to quiver – as if she couldn’t make herself stay visible any longer – and then she was gone, taking her picture with her. Leaving Annie wondering what she had been trying to tell her.
When she tried to tell Will about it when he got home, hours later, she found that the only way to describe the woman was that she looked haunted. She knew how corny it sounded because she was dead, and wouldn’t we all look haunted if we were dead and still wandering around, but the woman looked distressed, which had then made her feel upset for her. She’d spent the rest of the night upstairs in bed reading on her Kindle with the television on in the background so the house didn’t feel so big and empty, hoping that Will would be home soon to tell her she was being ridiculous and there were no dead women staring in through the kitchen windows, and that it was just her overactive imagination.
1995
Heath went out for a walk in the woods to check if the grave he had dug lay undisturbed. He had taken some of the soil in a wheelbarrow in the middle of the night and put it into his recently built rockery outside his back door, then covered the grave with stones, moss and branches from nearby so it didn’t look fresh. It was just as he’d left it. Then he made his way to the village hall, where he offered to take some of the flyers that had been printed up and post them through letterboxes. The woman who was in charge was brusque with him, in fact she was downright rude, and he had wanted to tell her to go fuck herself. But he hadn’t because she was the doctor’s receptionist and he never knew when he might need an appointment – not to mention the fact that she was a gossip. He’d smiled, nodded and taken his flyers like a good boy. There were a few mothers, friends of the family and teenagers there, everyone feeling hopeless – all wanting to help find Sharon Sale. Most of them knew that by now things weren’t looking good and the chances of her turning up alive were slim. In fact they were zero to none, but he couldn’t tell them that. He just had to carry on like a concerned villager and hope they all lost interest soon. He hadn’t taken any of this into consideration before it had been too late and she was lying on the couch in his studio, very much dead. Already the police presence had been scaled down from what it had been the first five days. Now there were just a couple of officers sitting at a table at the far end of the village hall with a clipboard each and huge, steaming mugs of tea.
He didn’t like the police, never had done since he’d been a boy and his mother had scared him to death with threats of taking him to the nearest copper if he was naughty. He never understood why parents would do that to their children. Surely if your child was lost or in trouble you wouldn’t want them to be terrified of asking for help from the people who were meant to provide it. The woman called Jo, who lived opposite the post office, made a beeline for him and he was glad of her conversation to make him look like he was part of the community and not some oddball loner. He began to chat with her about the weather, how awful it was that they hadn’t found poor Sharon. He nodded. It was a bloody miracle that they hadn’t found her but thank Christ they hadn’t or he wouldn’t be standing here today to tell the tale. They both walked out of the hall and into the village together, ready to begin knocking on doors and posting the flyers.
It only took him thirty minutes and he was done. It was such a warm day and he wanted to go home, lock his door and have a cold shower. Jo came strolling back towards him.
‘I was wondering if you fancied a cold drink from the pub? I think we’ve earned it, don’t you?’
‘I’d love one. That might be the best idea I’ve ever heard.’
They’d gone to the pub where they’d sat outside under the shade of a wonky umbrella on a creaky old picnic table and had spent the next hour chatting about poor Sharon, their lives and the locals. Heath knew he wasn’t interested in the woman opposite him, apart from the fact that he’d seen her with the doctor a couple of times at the pub quizzes he’d forced himself to go to so he looked like part of the community. He also knew that she could provide him with great cover and alibis because at the moment he looked like a complete loner and he didn’t want anyone starting to gossip about him – that strange man who lived near the woods who liked to photograph women for a living. If he had a girlfriend he wouldn’t stand out so much, and it would be a challenge to steal her away from the new doctor who thought he was better than everyone else, but who Heath knew wasn’t. So he turned on the charm he normally kept reserved for his clients and plied her with it until she’d agreed to come to his house for a meal the next night. She had dithered for around ten minutes before agreeing and he’d smiled; the fact that it was quiz night tomorrow hadn’t escaped him. The doctor would be sitting waiting for her and wouldn’t realise that she was hopefully with him – if she didn’t chicken out. He would cook her a perfect meal and ply her with alcohol, then take her to bed and show her such a good time that she’d never want to look at Dr Miller ever again.
